


Jake Builds A Robot

by Classpectanon



Series: Three Hundred And Sixty Five Ficlets About Homestuck [47]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - No Sburb/Sgrub Sessions, Gen, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-16
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-12 04:53:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29504397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Classpectanon/pseuds/Classpectanon
Summary: It was such a beautiful day. Outside, small birds chirped while larger birds let out that angry sort of "Tseeeeer!" noise they let out whenever they felt the need to swoop down on something and kill it. A small rabbit hopped its way across Jake's grandmother's garden, onto Jake's foot, sitting on it for as long as it decided to - at least, until Jake moved his foot a tiny bit and it ran away, expecting pain and predation. Somewhere, several flowers bloomed, they grew, they stretched out towards the onlooking spring sun, hungry for photosynthesis.47/365
Relationships: Jake English & Robotics
Series: Three Hundred And Sixty Five Ficlets About Homestuck [47]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2085684
Kudos: 5





	Jake Builds A Robot

It was such a beautiful day. Outside, small birds chirped while larger birds let out that angry sort of " _Tseeeeer!_ " noise they let out whenever they felt the need to swoop down on something and kill it. A small rabbit hopped its way across Jake's grandmother's garden, onto Jake's foot, sitting on it for as long as it decided to - at least, until Jake moved his foot a tiny bit and it ran away, expecting pain and predation. Somewhere, several flowers bloomed, they grew, they stretched out towards the onlooking spring sun, hungry for photosynthesis.

Jake sat on the little park bench his grandmother had dragged out there years ago, now slightly bent, slightly warped, just a touch rotten with age, overgrown with ivy, and worked. It wasn't on any sort of large project, not like the happy little robotic butler he had built to ensure his grandmother's final days were calm and peaceful (as if he knew, somewhere in his head, that there was a need to keep her safe beyond the obvious). It also wasn't like the little robotic alarm clock that he granted the gift of vague sentience, or, at the bare minimum, "the ability to run away to make sure he actually woke up". And it wasn't like he was creating his homebrew roomba either, to help keep the garden clean and occasionally cuss when it bumped into something (what a project that was!). And it was definitely much, much simpler than Brobot, who now lay quietly in storage, positronic brain powered down peacefully, no longer fit for task.

Once, in the past, he brawled and scrapped with the scrapheap frequently, but it seemed beyond him now. Jake wasn't really much of a very skilled roboticist, but he was good at following instructions, and taking instructions apart, and putting them back together in his head in a different order to make something fundamentally new, like a collage art piece. Jake never was quite as good at all the things his friends were good at - not quite as skilled a chef as Jane, not quite as prodigious an engineer as Dirk, and not quite as powerful a programmer as Roxy, but he was decently skilled enough at all three things together that it meant he could charitably keep pace.

Plus, he could garden. Nobody else in his friend group could do that.

What was Jake making? That was an excellent question. He often didn't know the answer himself when he started working. He had schematics and servos and parts and motors and little positron brains from his grandmother's company to slip onto a circuitboard and solder into place and bada bing, bada boom, you usually had a robot. Most of the time, they were frail, farcical things, little hobbling boys that lounged around the garden, companions to the rabbits and the birds. Right now, one of his oldest creations, a mechanical turtle, slowly pulled itself along the trail of the sun, solar panels on its back keeping it striving for warmth. A small bunny slept on its back, kept perpetually sunned by the symbiosis between the two. A little mechanical, clockwork woodpecker idly pecked at a tree, with all the behaviors of an actual woodpecker barring the eating, the shitting, and the fucking that woodpeckers tended to do. An actual woodpecker flew down, examined one of Jake's simulacra, and flew away for greener pastures - clearly, this tree was occupied.

Bright, sparking heat flew as Jake soldered metal to metal, landing on damp wood and extinguishing itself in short order. He pulled away, setting his equipment aside, and stared at his creation, satisfied. He wasn't entirely sure what he had made, but it had an array of legs, two little grabby hands, and a visual sensor. He grabbed it, and put it down on the ground, and then watched as it slowly roamed the garden, grabbing a sunflower seed from Jake's open bag on the ground and shuffling off to a corner to plant it.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading. All views, kudos, comments, and bookmarks are appreciated.  
> [Twitter](https://twitter.com/classpectanon)


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